Coming into Month 6, I made it my goal to have the Best. Month. Ever! I had spent the previous month in Cambodia feeling unmotivated and uninspired, and so I was determined to turn that around.
Unfortunately, that didn’t turn out exactly as I would have liked – which is a real bummer because I love Thailand and our contacts here! Writing has certainly helped me deal with all the negative stuff, but now I feel like my blog is one big pity party. And it’s Advent! A time to celebrate in breathless anticipation of our Savior’s birth! I don’t want to overshadow that with gloom and doom.
The Advent Devotional that my home church sends out used this Scripture today, from Isaiah 42.
Even though there was darkness in my life this month, the light is so much more powerful! So I wanted to share some of the awesome, inspiring, life-giving moments that I’ve experienced in Thailand.
- Helping to bake cookies
- Having a pizza party after a day cruising around the Andaman Sea
- Singing Christmas hymns and carols
- Seeing giant Christmas trees at all the fancy hotels and restaurants around town
- Serving a volleyball over the net
- Having younger siblings in the Nelson kids (though they could never replace my sisters!)
- Watching Star Wars on the big screen
- Having a few days with real beds and real towels
- Pad Thai and Fried Rice and Sweet Chili Sauce everywhere
- Seeing people be encouraged by the Bible verses we’ve shared with them
- Eating $1 mini chocolate M&M blizzards and chocolate donuts
- Having good enough Internet to call my family every week! (And to watch figure skating videos)
- Petting kittens
- Getting to see Whitney and Emma and their team in Bangkok (also, hooray for new passport pages!)
- Taking time to read – a lot!
- Lighting the Advent wreath with my team
- Sitting down in a clean space after sweeping and mopping and doing a boat-load of dishes
- Winning at Bible trivia 🙂
- Being able to laugh off all the chaos in scheduling (especially at English camp)
- Singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” for the billionth time knowing that the students are having a blast
- So many smiles and hugs and laughs
- Celebrating Christmas with our Calvary Chapel family – probably the only Christmas party I will attend that has grilled squid on the menu
